Porcelain Doll
by thejennamonster
Summary: Strict PG13 rating. Gaz's nightmares are rooted in a harsh and cruel reality.


A/n: A little something to hold you guys over till I get the next chapter of YOLT up (which should be in the next few days, I'm just waiting for the opinion of my beta reader).

WARNING: Hinted non-con sexual situations.

DISCLAIMER: Do you even have to ask?

Porcelain Doll

When I was a child I used to have this dream. Well, perhaps not so much a dream as it was a nightmare, and not really so much a nightmare as it was…

I would scream out in my sleep, my voice loud enough to rouse my older brother from his bed, his pajamas and hair rumbled from sleep, his glasses crooked. I would wake up to his hands shaking me, calling my name, begging for me to wake up. Always I would shoot awake suddenly, always I would stare at him, no, through him, my eyes wide and unrecognizing. There was never a time where I could breath after one of these nightly terrors and he would pound me on the back as I choked, trying to force air into my lungs. Finally, blissfully, something would break free and I would collapse into his arms, wetting the t-shirt he had worn to bed with my tears.

After a few moments, I would realize where I was and who was holding me and I would push him roughly away, wiping the tears from my face angrily. He would fall backwards, sometimes off the bed and onto the floor, and just stare at me, his amber eyes almost glowing with hurt behind his glasses. I longed to tell him that it wasn't _him_ that I was angry with—that I was mad at myself for showing such weakness in front him and at my subconscious for not allowing me even one night of peaceful respite.

As I grew older, the nightmares became less frequent, but the sleepwalking began. I would awaken curled up on the couch or standing in front of the 'fridge with no recollection of how I came to be there. One night I even wandered as far as Zim's base. He had found me curled onto his front step in the morning, and nudged me awake with his foot, confusion in his imitation purple eyes. I did nothing but glare at him as I stood and brushed myself off, turning and walking back towards my own house, my head held as high and as proudly as I could manage.

These nightly incidents were never discussed. In the morning, my brother and I would sit together at the table in the kitchen, my face buried in a video game and his voice filling the awkward silence. His eyes were always questioning, however, peering at me from behind his Coke bottle lenses, almost begging for me to let him in, to tell him what was wrong, why I cried out so loudly in the night.

Part of me yearned to answer him, struggling against the restraints of my pride, calling out for me to just Let Go already and ask for Help! But I ignored it, instead grabbing his soda or the last piece of toast and consuming it, letting both him and that stupid little Voice know that _I_ was the one in control, here. I didn't need anyone. I was a strong woman. I could face this, alone.

I was a bit surprised, however, that, as perceptive as my brother was, he never realized that my nightly episodes always seemed to focus around the point in time that He was home. That silent figure who lived in our basement when he wasn't spending his nights across town. The man who shared one half of our genetic structure, who's recorded image forced us to tell Him that we loved Him before it would allow us to eat. The creature who would haunt my dreams the same way that He would haunt my bedroom once my brother's breathing had reached a relaxed, regular pattern and the house was still.

He would come to me in the night, looming over me, staring at first, and then reaching out to gently push the hair from my face. I always kept my eyes closes, always feigned sleep, or even death. Always tried to keep my face still, to keep from cringing as His rough fingertips would slide down my face, my neck, down to…

His hands would be everywhere, rough, callused, hard. They would…

The acidic smell of His sweat, the hot air of His breath as He…

He would leave me as silently as He had appeared, making His way back down to the basement, or, more often than not, back across town, disappearing for days, weeks, months at a time. In the space between His visits, one would assume that I would feel relief, but instead my heart held only dread, fear, because I knew that, while He was gone, now, He would eventually return and my nightmares would become reality once again.

My brother tried only once to get me to tell him about the Episodes. He came into my room one Tuesday after dinner, cautiously creeping through the door and sitting lightly on the edge of the end of my bed. I glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised, indulging him for the moment before I would kick him out with a black eye and my robot security dolls nipping at his heels. The same dolls that He had built for me. The ones that were programmed to ignore my commands when directed at Himself.

Dib cleared his throat nervously and then asked, "Are you alright?"

"What kind of stupid question is that?" I drawled, unimpressed, my eyes never leaving the screen of my game.

"You've been having nightmares since we were kids, Gaz. You've been sleepwalking, again. Zim told me that he found you on asleep on his doorstep the other morning. What's going on with you? I know we're not close, but still, we're family. You can trust me."

Family. Trust. Two words that my naive brother should never have put in the same sentence. I felt a familiar anger rise within me. The anger that made that little Voice I kept chained in the back of my mind to cry out, "He doesn't know! It's not his fault!" But the Voice's effort to spare my brother physical pain was in vain as usual. I growled at Dib, pausing my game and lying it on the bed next to me. His eyes widened in fear and understanding as I focused my iron glare on him.

"I don't have to tell you, anything, Dib." I spat, "I don't know what you're talking about. Now get OUT. OF. MY. ROOM."

He scrambled from the bed, as anxious to leave my sight as I was to not have to look at him anymore, not have to stare into those pleading, questioning eyes. I rose with him, following him unnecessarily and uncomfortably close, treading on the heel of his boots with every step. When we reached the door way, he stopped and turned back towards me.

"Gaz—" he tried again.

I growled deep in my throat and cut him off by slamming the door in his face, and probably into his nose by the way he cried out from the other side.

I had stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to keep my emotions in check, to be the strong woman that my mother had always whispered that I would be—the only thing that I remembered her saying before she died. "Don't be anyone's play thing, Gaz. You're not a porcelain doll. You're a strong, beautiful woman. You're my Amazon Queen."

However, my own self doubt and loathing got the better of me and I felt hot tears begin to slide down my cheeks in waves. Damn Dib and his meddling mind! Damn him for actually caring! Couldn't he see how hard I was trying to push him away? How far I wanted him to be from this horrible Secret? I wanted only to protect him from His sight, to keel him safe, even if it meant keeping him as far away from me as possible.

I threw myself on the bed, and cried, the sound of my sobs muffled by the bedding.

When I was seventeen I sleep walked for the final time. I had my final dream. The one that changed everything; the one that landed me here.

In my dream, He had come for me. His hands, His breath, His sweat. He had left me, wordlessly, and I heard His boots descending first the steps and led to the lower level of the house and then the ones that led to the basement. In my dream, I rose, silently, soundlessly, after the house had settled, and, my white nightgown flowing between my ankles, padded out of the room, the bare floorboards cold beneath my feet.

I walked down the stairs, one hand lightly on the banister, not so much out of support, but more out of habit, leftover from my childhood. I slipped silently through the living room, the ghost of the Girl in White, and floated into the kitchen, where I took the Knife from its wooden block on the counter. The silver of it glinted in the moonlight, reflecting every piece of furniture in the room that I passed on the way to the door to the basement.

While the door normally emitted a shrill scream every time it was opened, in my dream it was silent. I took that as a sign to press forward and I padded down the cramped basement steps, ignoring the pain as a splinter stabbed the sole of my left foot.

He didn't feel me behind him, didn't sense me until I drove the knife into his back to the hilt. He suddenly stood upright, ridged, and his hands automatically groped behind him for the weapon, which I yanked from his skin, relishing in his pained screams and thrust it back again over and over, as he had done to me time and time again.

As the light faded from his eyes, I could sense understanding. He was a genius, after all. He had a way of picking up on things.

I looked down at my blood slick hands, my now red night gown and realized that I was fully awake, and where my sleep walking, this time, had led me.

When my brother raced to me this time, his pajama pants and hair mussed from sleep, his glasses crooked, it was not because it heard my screams. No, it was because of my laughter.

-FIN-


End file.
